Mobility is one of the basic requirements of modern society. A functioning economy needs a well developed infrastructure. What is more, the possibility of getting from A to B without let or hindrance is an important aspect of our personal quality of life. But mobility comes at a price. The increasing volume of traffic is one of the biggest drivers of global warming and thus a major environmental problem. In the EU-15, traffic accounts for roughly a quarter of green-house gas emissions – and that‘s excluding air and shipping traffic. Worldwide the figure is one-eighth. Road traffic is responsible for over 90% of the emissions. Traffic volume – and hence traffic emissions – are set to grow worldwide. Forecast figures for the development of the transportation sector in the period to 2020 speak for themselves:
- The volume of freight traffic in Europe is set to grow by more than a quarter. Over 80% of this will be due to road transportation (see figure below).
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The volume of passenger traffic by road in Europe will grow by roughly one-fifth
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By 2020, the number of airplanes in our skies will have doubled worldwide.
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Vehicle density in Germany will continue to grow, from today‘s level of 570 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants to around 630.
- On the international scale, developments are expected to be even more extreme. For instance, China is predicted to have 110 million vehicles by 2020 – three times the current level.
Considerable progress has been made over recent years in reducing CO2 emissions from cars. However, we are still falling short of our targets on reduction. And in any case, the progress made in reducing specific emissions has been offset by growth in the number of cars on our roads and increases in the average amount of miles driven. The upshot? Unlike areas such as agriculture or industry, where real reductions have been achieved, the European transportation sector experienced an increase in the level of CO2 emissions of nearly a quarter between 1990 and 2006. On top of this, soil sealing and fragmentation of the countryside has also increased as a result of road-building.
9% annual market growth in hybrid vehicles and around 6% in traffic telematics means strong growth opportunities for businesses.
Dynamic medium-sized and large companies from Germany enjoy an excellent reputation for sustainable mobility around the globe.
Innovation drives growth. Germany is the world leader in developing efficient engines and exhaust filters.
Sustainable mobility means jobs. Companies in the federal states of Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia hold the record here, with the greatest potential for jobs in this lead market.
Alternative ideas can bring about new products for sustainable mobility, such as two-liter cars, container ships using sail drive engines, and cold recycling of asphalt.
The response required to these chal-lenges is clear. Practically all of to-day‘s transportation technologies must also be environmental technol-ogies. This is the only way to make the mobility required by society environmentally acceptable. Indeed, many German businesses are already hard at work to show the world that more mobility doesn‘t necessarily mean more traffic, and more traffic doesn‘t necessarily mean more pol-lution. German construction compa-nies, automotive firms and software developers are busy making mobility sustainable. Here‘s some of what they‘re up to:
Rail transportation is unbeatable in terms of its energy consumption and CO2 emissions. It uses just 45 megajoules (MJ) of energy to transport one metric ton of freight over 100 kilometers, equivalent to roughly 1.2 liters of diesel fuel. By comparison, road transportation uses more than four times as much energy to cover the same distance – 188 MJ or 5.2 liters of fuel. Increasing the share of rail transportation from its current level of 16% to 25% would mean energy savings of more than 66 petajoules – roughly one-and-a-half times the annual power consumption of the federal state of Berlin. And that would mean a saving of some 5 million tons of CO2 emissions.
- Designing efficient engine technology, including fuelsaving gasoline, and diesel motors, efficient diesel engines, electric and hybrid engines and fuel cell vehicles
- Producing environmentally friendly vehicle technology and vehicle design, for example using light-weight construction technology, LED lights or reducing drag or rolling friction
- Constructing efficient logistics systems for freight transportation
- Traffic management, including smart traffic management in cities, intermodal strategies for optimizing the transfer from one mode of transportation to another and car sharing
- Designing environmentally friendly transportation infrastructure, such as LED traffic lights, porous asphalt or structures for reducing noise such as modern noise barriers
